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Act 2
Scene 10 – Las Vegas
From the book,
Theatres of Capitalism:
Managing Corporate Spectacle, Resisting with Carnival, and creating
Festival on the Global Stage
By David M. Boje, Ph.D. November 13, 2001
Scene 10 – Las Vegas
Las Vegas integrates concentrated spectacles of bureaucratic script with diffuse
spectacles of Las Vegasization. Las Vegasization is the bait and switch game. The
bait is a bold, elaborate, and bracy concentrated spectacle of wealth and power
displayed along the Strip. The switch is you going wild with addictions to
gambling, sex, maybe alcohol in ways that separates you from your cash. This is a
spectacle that diffuses in imitation as city centers, malls, and airports try to
become Las Vegas replicants.
Come to Las Vegas. Play the role of the winner, of one who can afford to gamble and lose,
because you will win ultimately. Positivity abounds in the integrated spectacles of late modern
capitalism. Your role is to believe that you are the fortunate one on whom the universe will
shower its blessings, in for form of Las Vegas casinos showering you with jackpots, women,
and indulging all your desires. You forget the more organic and festive aspects of life, like
love, health, well-being, art, nature, friendship and community. These are sideshows. Las
Vegasization is showing, not telling. It is images of wealth and power, showgirls and luxury
phantasmal. Spectacle is postmodern theatre since the spectators becomes actors on the stage,
in Las Vegas theatre, proactively designing their own consumption experience, a willing
participant in the theatrical production being eagerly consumed. It is the new spectacle in
Theatre of consumption.
My theme is capitalism is becoming more a Theatre of integrated spectacle, scripted to make
experiences that we work in and consume highly positive. As Marcuse (1964) says, the
negativity is banished; only positivity remains.
I want to explore how theatrics is utilized in the now capitalism to seduce us into work and
consumer roles where we can let our addictions go wild. I want to apply Aristotle's six
elements of dramatic Theatre to Las Vegas (plot, character, thought, dialog, melody, and
spectacle), but put them in a new order, according to their role in capitalism. I will argue that it
is now spectacle that dominates in Las Vegasization, not plot or character, as theorized by
Aristotle. Spectacle is visual; you don't tell it, you show it. The point of the Theatres of
capitalism is increasingly to use spectacle to trigger our addictions. Here and there
carnivalesque protest resists spectacle, and people do seek festive alternatives. But, mostly
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spectacle just co-opts all other theatrical forms. First a story about showing spectacle, then I
turn to a systematic rendition of each of Aristotle's Theatre elements, as they apply to the new
capitalism of Las Vegasization.
Since I gave up drinking, gambling, and meat, I am mostly just addicted to the entertainment. I
am standing in front of a 54-foot Mirage volcano that is masquerading as a peaceful waterfall.
Someone I don't know tells me, "Beginning at dusk, the volcano spewing fire up to 100 feet
above the lagoon, every 15 minutes until midnight, each day of the year." Another says, "It's as
close as you can get to an active volcano without lava spilling on your shoes." The conversation
is getting lively, so I add, "Can you believe it a man made volcano erupting right on the Las
Vegas strip?" Cascading waters chum and a giant fireball erupts, to the delight of hordes of
spectators. I am standing close to the front, so I can feel the heat, as the lagoon "catches" fire.
I have a decision to make, the show is over, and I can move on to see others, or go inside the
Mirage. I decide to go "stripping," a term that describes spectators moving from one spectacle
to the next, especially the free ones, all along the Strip. I want to see Paris Las Vegas; the halfscale replica of the City of Lights' famous Eiffel Tower is great photo op! I skip the $8 elevator
ride to the top. It's a long walk from here to the Excalibur, to see on the hour, a giant, scaly,
fire-breathing 5 1 - foot robotic dragon that lurks in the castle moat at Excalibur, does battle
with a robotic Merlin the Magician for domination of the mystical moat. I decide the robot
battle can wait.
I head to Caesar's Palace. I love how they co-opt festival into a spectacle titled, "Festival
Fountains," where robotic Roman statues come alive for a laser, sound and fire show every
hour on the hour starting at I 1:00 a.m., in Caesar's Palace Forum Shops. Something strange
has happened to festival, but also carnival in Las Vegas. Carnival was once about resistance to
spectacle power, with lots of satire and parody. Carnival is different in Las Vegas. Twice an
hour, at Circus, Circus, Circus, Circus, I can watch the world's greatest Circus acts. For an
exploration of carnival, I head to Harrah's. They offer a free Carnival Court with 20-minute
shows featuring gymnasts, dancers and fireworks. There are also live bands, from reggae to
rock, performing in this open air, covered court situated right in front of Harrah's south side.
As with Circus, Circus, there is no parody or satire of spectacle here.
It's after 8 P.M, the fountains of Bellagio, time to see a spectacle span of more than 1,000 feet,
featuring choreographed music ranging from Luciano Pavarotti to Frank Sinatra, gushing jets
of water flirt, dance, and soar up to 240 feet in the air. Bellagio Fountains is said to be just like
being in the heart of Lake Como in Italy. Having never been there, I will take their word for it.
It is a bit of a walk back to Treasure Island. But, that spectacle is every ninety minutes, and
lasts for eight-minutes. I watch the Pirate Battle at Buccaneer Bay in front of Treasure Island
as two huge fifty-foot high battleships with oodles of live pirates put on a spectacular reenactment of activities, I am told I would expect at a Boston Tea Party. I was not there either.
I decide not to pay the $14 admission to the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park. It would be
a study of both Disneyfication and McDonaldization. It duplicates a Disneyfied amusement
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park, surrounding it with McDonaldized food stands. There are more fast food stand and Tshirt emporiums than rides. I also skip the Venetian Grand Canal Gondolas Ride. $12.50 seems
a little pricey for a ten-minute gondola ride, where a singing Italian takes you to shop at The
Gap. I. decide to just take their virtual Venetian gondola tour when I get back to my computers
I also skip the Rio and their Masquerade Show in the Sky. It features a cast of 36 performers,
five floats, elaborate costumes and four different themed parades. For just $9.95, I can
participate in the actual parade. But, that is too far off-Strip, out on Flamingo Road. I stay on
Strip, and take a long walk to the Luxor, where Tut-O-Mania lives on, in a full-scale mock-up
of the great Egyptian king's tomb, meticulously reproduced, they say, according to actual
historical records. I have not been to Egypt, but the animated guide tells me this experience is
as real as real can be.
I want to experience Digital Storytelling Theatre in a six story Coke Bottle. You can tell your
stories and have them become part of Coke's Digital Storytelling Theatre or just vicariously relive all those key events in your life that revolved around Coke. When I get to the door, I
decide to skip it; I don't drink Coke so why go in? I am handed a flier. Drive 30 minutes along
Boulder Highway to the Ocean Spray Cranberry World for free spectacle. It says I will learn
more than I care to know about cranberries. While the free samples and bakers' treats is
tempting, I know I will be forced to watch the kitchen demonstration. I start thinking about
spectacles that other corporations are putting on in Las Vegas. What about M&M World? It
has, a 3-D movie adventure starring Red and Yellow M&M, all within a four-story shopping
complex that features thousands of original M&M's brand merchandise. Nah, I gave up milk
chocolate when I became a vegan; why suffer through the temptation?
I choose to drift into the Mirage. I want the experience of rebelling against their treatment of
animals, and that entire artificial environment is just too much for an ecologist to pass up. I see
a tropical rainforest with palm trees reaching 60 foot, a simulated cascading waterfall, artificial
lagoons, and expertly sculpted tropical flowers and plants, including elephant ears and orchids.
Someone next to me says" there are more than 100 different types of plants in this rainforest."
My Las Vegas appetite for spectacle addiction knows no limits. I want the experience of
rebelling at the spectacle, and the occasional fun of being a player in the show. I want to
participate with wild abandon, and become a character taking risks. Well, I actually don't want
to use the $5 off coupon for bungee jumping or if I pay $35 to get the thrill of skydiving.
Las Vegas is the grandest, most grotesque and materialist consumption spectacle on earth. It
co-opts the rebellion of carnival and the fun of festival. And we are all strippers, addicts
wandering between spectacles, addicted not to drinking, gambling or sex, but to the experience
of being the actor on the spectacular stage.
Las Vegasization is the ultimate spectacle of Theatres of production and consumption being
distributed widely throughout the global economy. Las Vegasization is the ultimate spectacle,
an amalgam of Disneyfication of visual architecture, storyboarded and themed shopping malls
along with McJobs work in McDonaldized employment regimes. Las Vegasization is being
distributed to the world, as cities everywhere are imitating the combination of theme park with
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casinos, sex industry, lots of Hollywood star power, and visual spectacle remakes of Paris,
Venice, Italy, and Egypt, made more real than the real. Las Vegasization is a bait and switch
game, the visual spectacle is the lure, the real game is separating you from your cash by
seducing you to become an actor instead of just a spectator.
I agree with Firat and Dholakia (1998: 156-157), it is time to replace "market" with the
metaphor of "Theatre." Theatre is the newest medium of economic and cultural transaction and
interaction. I want to extent their link between capitalism and Theatre, but developing the
theory of Theatre. I assume that theatrics co-evolves with capitalism. Las Vegas gambling and
sex industries, hotel-casinos and strip clubs combine visual spectacle, fusing Disneyfication,
McDonaldization, and Hollywoodization in a new visual Theatre of capitalist consumption.
Las Vegasization is what Gottdiener, 1997: 4) calls "the theme milieu with its pervasive use of
media culture motifs that define an entire built space increasingly characterizes not only cites
but also suburban areas, shopping places, airports, recreation spaces such as baseball stadia,
museums, restaurants, and amusement parks." Las Vegas is capitalism's role model for what
Firat and Dholakia (1998) call the "Theatres of Consumption."
Last year (2000), a group of postmortem, sociology, philosophy, marketing, and management
professors descended on Las Vegas and deconstructed everything. Our musings about how the
Las Vegas Casino-hotel is the new paradigm for business, one based on the Theatre of
consumption, rather than production and distribution. This year, we produced a journal issue
titled "deconstructing Las Vegas" "' I had the task of roasting Mark Gottdiener, a sociologists
with two books on Las Vegas (1997; Gottdiener et al., 1999). Ritzer and Stillman (2001)
applied his McDonaldization critique to Las Vegas, pointing out that the new business model
smashes time boundaries to create the 24/7 Theatre of consumption. From marketing Russell
Belk and Fuat Firat did a postmortem take on Las Vegas consumption. Myself and other
regulars at the critical postmortem track of IABD did our usual management and production
critiques. I looked at the postmortem production aspects of the strip tease industry.
This chapter is structured into the Septet elements (see Scene 7).
(1)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Plots
Characters
Themes
Dialog
Rhythm
Frames
In Las Vegas there is also an implosion of three theatrics across these six parts, (1) ancient
festival theatrics that was much more tied to seasons and nature, (2) the carnival theatrics of the
Middle Ages that parodied power, and (3) spectacle theatrics, of which there is no better
example than Las Vegas. The plan of the chapter is to overarch Aristotle's six elements with
this trilogy of theatrics, festival, carnival and spectacle.
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I shall argue that the postmortem consumed is possessed by a schizophrenic identity, a paradox
of conflicting life styles. The postmortem consumer is involved in creating their own use-value
and surplus value, in being a producer, and sometimes a director, of the Theatre they consume.
Increasingly the consumer takes a proactive attitude towards the products they consume in
another way, by becoming more aware of who makes their products, and under what
conditions. The postmortem consumer jumps onto that stage of consumption spectacle being
produced in Las Vegas or Disney, and assumes the role of spect-actor (spectator and actor),
experimenting for a day or a weekend with a temporary lifestyle (e.g. gambler, Mouseketeer,
sex god or goddess). The postmortem consumer also seeks alternative life styles, that are more
earth-friendly, and more about participating in community. Finally, the postmortem consumer
is engaged in acts of carnivalesque resistance to the market ideology of global capitalism.
I will argue that alternatives to spectacle, such as festival and carnival, have been coopted and
appropriated in Las Vegasization. This chapter is an exploration of the hypothesis that the
spectacle of consumption, particularly in Las Vegas is appropriating both festival and carnival.
To explore this hypothesis, we will look at Aristotle six parts of dramatic Theatre.
First Part: The Visual element of Spectacle, Carnival and Festival
Spectacle in its postmortem garb is a visual environment that mixes architecture styles from
around the world, in a theatrical milieu that is bigger than life, more real than the original, just
spectacular. Carnival and festival are also visual, but spectacle takes it to another level.
Different genres of Theatre, spectacle, festival and camival, tend to emphasize different
theatrical parts. Spectacle for Aristotle was ranked as the sixth part (or element), but for Las
Vegas, I am moving spectacle to the top of our list. Festival would put character above all
others. Carnival stresses the theme of sweet chaos and resistance to spectacle.
Progressively our daily life of production, distribution, and consumption occurs within a
spectacular visual theatrical theme environment. Las Vegasization is migrating to the web with
sites like e-casino. In the postmortem theatrical turn, our visual milieu includes Casino Bars,
Strip Clubs on the World Wide Web, where the gambling and sex industry appears on our
computer screen.
Spectacle has two meanings. First, following Aristotle, spectacle is everything you see in the
Las Vegas Theatres of capitalism. It is the visual aspects, the theatrical props, costumes, makeup, lighting, and the architectural style of sets that are used inside the Casinos and along the
Strip. To avoid confusion with Spectacle Theatre, we will call this the "visual part." Second,
spectacle is also a genre of Theatre, and what the spectators consume in postmortem capitalism.
Spectacle is both a "visual" part of the Poetics of Theatre, and it is most important in the
postmortem turn of late modem capitalism.
Las Vegas stresses the theatrics of visual spectacle more than Aristotle could ever have
imagined when he ranked 'spectacle' as the least important of his 'six elements.' Perhaps he
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would not be too alanned, since the Greek word for Theatre is "theatron," and means the
"seeing place." Las Vegas is definitely the "seeing place" of all types of spectacles. Spectacle
is visible everywhere in Las Vegas strip, in the advertising extravaganza, from the four-story
coke bottle that houses digital Storytelling Theatre, to the indoor malls of Caesar's palace, to a
theme park casino like MGM, to the simulated Egyptian tombs of Luxor, the model Eiffel
tower of Paris, Paris and the sanitary canals of Venice. Las Vegas is more real than reality
itself, more authentic than the original, and much tidier, more climate-controlled, and a safer
vacation for the masses. Las Vegasization is the new role model of Americana,
reterritorializing the shopping malls, airports, and cities that mimic Las Vegas, and become Las
Vegasization.
There is an important co-evolution of capitalism and its theatrics. Once upon a time spectacle,
festival and carnival were indistinguishable. Modernity separated production from
consumption, and with it leisure from work. Production in the home was transformed into
labor in the factory. This according to Marx, allowed the capitalist to extract and accumulate
surplus value. There is in late modem, a separation of public and private consumption.
Consumption in the public space (movies, dances and social gatherings), with late modernity
(post-World war 11), became consumption in private spaces (television, home video, and
computer games). Fiat and Dholakia (1998: 10) refer to this as more alienated consumption.
There is a final transformation. The postmortem consumer is less passive and alienated, and
becoming more active and participatory in producing what they consume. The individualprivate-alienated-passive pattern of consumption is transfortning. DVD, for example, allows
more participation than a video. Video games are also more interactive, allowing for gaming
between people connected on the Internet.
For Bakhtin, carnival is in opposition to the spectacle of separation. The visual element of
carnival is not what we see in Circus, Circus; that is a co-optation by spectacle. Rather,
visually, the carnivalesque had as much (or more) nudity by the spectators than occurs on the
stage of the hotel casino clubs, and decidedly more camal knowledge than is allowed by law.
Carnivalesque is a theatrical space associated more with the street fair than the spectaclethemed marketplace. Carnival is a transgression of spectacle moral sanctions and non-ns, done
on the public stage, where all things private get temporarily suspended.
Bakhtin's (1973) carnival was much more grotesque than Las Vegas spectacle. His model was
the work of Rabelais, a French Renaissance novelist, observing the court of Francis I during the
1530s. Carnivalesque relies on reversing the expected hierarchy to accomplish its satire and
parody (e.g. servants dress as masters, and insult both crown and church). In addition,
carnivalesque is a grotesque mixture of high art and popular culture. This carnivalesque
leakage between high art into popular art is appropriated by Las Vegas spectacle (e.g. Tut's
tomb in the Luxor).
Spectacles were performed since there was government, for the imitation for spectators.
Foucault (1979) argues that spectacles, such as torture and execution on the public square were
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important ways to strike fear and terror into spectators, and a way to link the authority of man
to that of the gods. The high artists imitate popular culture, and vice versa. There is "leakage"
across styles and themes in the tropes and codes of the visual world of carnival. As such
carnival is perfect for appropriation by spectacle designers of Las Vegas visual exhibits. But in
Las Vegas, carnival is within the law, where during the Renaissance it was outside laws and
norms of polite society. In that sense, the "real" carnivalesque resides off the main Las Vegas
strip.
Carnival is easily confused with festival. And at one time they were not so different. During
the Renaissance, carnival was an extended festival, lasting up to three months. We find it still
in Rio carnival, a time of sweet chaos, but only for a day and night, when the laws and norms
of the rest of the year are set aside.
Carnival is more about the body, a time to eat, have sex, and defecate in public. The choice of
carnival masks represented a flux of temporary identities, experiments with experience before
returning to the one mask. It is no surprise that the grotesque is being employed by resistance
movements to globalization in the street Theatre carnival of WTO and other protests against the
ideology of the market economy.
Since World War II, capitalism has shifted from an emphasis on Theatres of industrial
production to global distribution and global divisions of labor of the 1980s and 1990s to the
recent postmortem turn to the Theatre of consumption. With the postmortem turn (Best &
Kellner, 1997), we witnessed the emergence of a more proactive consumer, than we saw in the
Theatres of postindustrial production, which had more passive, mass consumers. This
postmortem consumer does not sit passively watching the actors in the spectacle; they want to
help with the production, in ways that defines their life mode (temporary identity) and lifestyle.
In the past, observers of mass cultural participation often did just that by painting the users or
the audiences as a group of passive consumers conditions by advertising to behave according to
the way producers wished... As individual identities become wrapped in modes of selfexpression and the fashioning of particular lifestyles in response to the great variety of market
choices, there is a blurred line between production and consumption (Gottdiener, 1997: 6).
The spectacles of Las Vegas (as well as Reno, Atlantic City, etc.) form a consumption system
in which casino hotels such as Mirage, Bellagio, Luxor, Caesar's Palace and other examples
listed in Table 4.1 compete over spectacle. Cash flow is a commonly used gauge of casino
industry profitability that can be used to measure spectacle monetary success. Cash flow is
defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Bems & Simpson,
2001).
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Table 4.1: The 2001 Cash Flow of Las Vegas Casino-Hotels
NAME
CASH FLOW
ROOMS
PROJECTIONS
(millions/year)
MGM Mirage (all holdings) $996.2
15,000
MGM Grand Las Vegas
$221.4
5,034
Harrah's, Aztar, Station (all) $310
N/A
Bellagio
$294.6
3,005
Mandalay (1 999, all)
$192.2
N/A
Mirage
$136
3,044
Treasure Island
$110.2
2,885
New York-New York
$96.4
2,024
Primm properties
$75.1
2,642
Paris, Las Vegas & Bally's
$51
N/A
Luxor(1999)
$35.7
N/A
Golden Nugget Las Vegas
$35.1
N/A
Caesars Palace
$34
N/A
Riviera
$29.2
N/A
Excalibur (1999)
$28.7
N/A
Flamingo
$28
N/A
Monte Carlo (1999)
$27.7
N/A
Circus, Circus (1999)
$20
N/A
Key: N/A is room count not available. All holding is combination of holdings for
casino hotels listed. Note: Figures compiled by author from articles by Bems, 1999;
Bems, 2001a, b; Bems & Simpson, 2001. Figures are 2000, except where indicated.
The point of Table 4.1 is to give you some idea of the large amounts of capital and the number
of rooms involved in spectacle competition. Resort casino hotels out do one another to stage
the grandest architectural, outdoor, and indoor spectacles that will draw in the most customers.
Belk (2000) argues the competition for grander spectacle in Las
Vegas, is down to its last theme, "The Last Resort: Hell."
Ad Slogans.- "Go to Hell," "You'll be Dying to Get Here," "Damned Good Fun"
Spectacles: Ever-flaming Fire & Brimstone, Ferry 'Cross the Styx, You Bet Your Life
With Hell's promised spectacle of ever-flaming fire and brimstone, the Mirage's
periodically erupting volcano is likely to seem tame.
Rides.- Drop of Doom, From Here to Eternity, the Bottomless Pit
Costumed Employees: Croupiers from Hell, Cocktail Waitresses from Hell, Pit Bosses
from Hell; His Royal Satanic Majesty
"Hell" says Belk (2000) "seems destined to become the latest and greatest attraction in the city
of excess."
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Theatres of capitalism are affected by catastrophe. The impact of September 1 1, for example,
on the projected 2001 earnings of Las Vegas hotel casinos was devastating. Paris and Bally's,
which jointly operated, saw cash flow fall to $30 million. MGM Mirage holdings fell 30
percent to $236.5 million after September I Ith. Hilton reported third quarter losses.
Spectacle is last place in festival, of more importance to carnival, and the most important part
of spectacle. In festival there are great visual elements, but it is the pursuit of fun for its own
sake that counts. In carnival the visual elements take a back seat to the theme of the parody,
which can be a parody and satire of power, and as such a form of resistance.
Spectacle uses visual to accumulate capital. The theatrical capital (e.g. surplus value over usevalue) is in the choice of characters (stars who make appearances add value), settings
(extravagant scenes add value), action (dramatic events add value), and time of day (evening is
prime time) of the spectacle. Spectacle appropriates its visual ideas from other parts of the
world, such as the Pyramids of Egypt, the canals of Venice, the plaza of Rome, or the Eiffel
Tower of Paris. Yet as visual spectacle, these are tidied up and presented as more sanitary and
safer risks. Gephart (2001: 141) defines safe risk as, activities that are specially constructed
forms of normally risky activities which employ simulation processes to generate a sense of
fear and danger while at the same time mitigating or preventing the emergence of true danger."
As we saw with Disneyfication and McDonaldization, Las Vegasization, as spectacle Theatre,
involves a front, back, and global stage; an audience of spectators (and spectators); where every
corporation becomes a player producing and distribution theatrical spectacles for consumption.
We are no longer the large undifferentiated, passive, and mass audience; we are becoming
players and spect-actors on the stage. We do more than boo and hiss, we demand to get involve
in the production, distribution and consumption. Las Vegas manages and organizes a Tamara
of visual spectacles in which we as postmortem customers cross the boundary of modem
Theatre, where actors no longer stay in their seats, but join the actors on stage. Las Vegas is a
series of postmortem stages, networked by actors moving from one play to another. We are
"reclaiming the stage" from its appropriation from feudal capitalism by modem capitalism; in
postmortem capitalism we co-participate in producing and consuming the "Theatre of life"
(Firat & Dholakia, 1998: 155).
Festive options- There is both a more oppressive and festive life off-Strip. Beneath the Las
Vegas Strip Theatre of the spectacle, is the oppressive life performers in the Strip Clubs, shows,
and gambling halls. Yet they also have a more festive life off-Strip; they pick up their kids
from school, attend PTA classes, and live the life style of any suburbanite in America. They
have one self in suburbia, and take on another persona when then enter the Strip.
Second Part - Plots in Spectacle, Carnival and Festival
Plots- Plot is the overall dramatic action and the arrangement of the dramatic action. Plot takes
us through some inciting incident to a point of attack, foreshowing, complications, and on to
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climax and resolution. Plot is the main events that take place in the story or play. The plot or
story line of capitalist society is the market economy ruled by the invisible hand, and science
and technology being always progressive. Carnivalesque street Theatre resists this plot, and
festive consumers are seeking an alternative life style that is more sustainable than overconsumption.
In Las Vegas, the plot is to move consumer from hotels, shows, and malls along the Strip into
the casino, moving from moment-to-moment until he or she reaches the climax, winning or
losing at the slot machines or gaming tables. For Aristotle, Theatre must have a linear plot with
three facets:
l.Unity of action (i.e. one event follows another through cause and effect)
2.Unity of place (i.e. everything happens in the same location)
3.Unity of time (i.e. everything happens at the same time)
A unified plot does not consist of disconnected events happening to our hero, but rather of
organically unified events in which all the parts of the experience are absolutely necessary and
in perfect order (Magala, 2001). This unity of plot is not what is evinced in Las Vegas
theatrics. In this more postmortem capitalism is a theatrics without such unity of action, place,
or time. Rather, Las Vegas is like navigating a theme park where the spect-actor scripts the
sequence of places, signs up for various show times, and decides the flow of actions. A story is
what happens in the theatrical drama, the plot of the play is how the playwright presents that
story to the audience. In Las Vegas, a story line is controlled by the available routes between
Casinos, underground, overhead, and along the sidewalks of the Strip. In this sense, Las Vegas
is a Tamara of simultaneous stages, the plot and sequence of which is a set of choices by
spectators, limited by the number of alternative routes and shows available. In a 24/7 world
without clocks, and where climates and sun and daylight are simulated, this is a Tamara
Theatre without a beginning or ending time.
The new plot - Las Vegas of the 1960s is not the Las Vegas of the 2000s. Las Vegas is the
Postmodern City of Casinos and Simulation, emblematic of a transformation of the spectacle of
production and consumption that is being globalized. Las Vegas, long the casino gambling
capital of America, began to go through a transformation in the late 1980s that revealed what
much of postmortem America is becoming. As other parts of the nation started to compete
with it by legalizing gambling, the city started to reinvent itself in the image of Disney (Boje,
1995), creating hotels that were also vast simulations and themed environments. In the new
Las Vegas casino, the managers have MBAs, and are charging higher hotel and meal rates than
their gangland predecessors. The new Las Vegas is Disneyfied in order to attract the family as
customer, and attempts to marginalize the Strip Clubs to off-the-Strip (Carr, 2001; downs &
Carr, 2001).
Festival was more the episodic plot, starting near the beginning of the story, rising with
foreshadowing and complications to a climax and resolution. The festival plot unfolds
according to the seasons of the year, and the cycle of morning, day, evening, and night.
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Carnival was also more seasonal, a time once a year, such as the Rio Carnival, when sweet
chaos would reign.
In the consumption of Las Vegas spectacles, climax and resolution can occur at any moment.
Las Vegas is a series of events of chance and the point of highest dramatic tension, where the
conflict of antagonists and protagonists of the play is resolved, is that climax event, when you
win big or lose big, or just quit the Theatre and go home. For most, Las Vegas is a series of
mini-climaxes, unless there is a dramatic change in the hero's fortunes (peripetia).
I know Las Vegas is a tragedy-plot, but why? For most customers, there is the tragic result of
losing your money, or spending more money on the gaming tables and slot machines than you
intended. The "good" character (consumer) is tragic, when he or she has a downfall in fortune
because of choices made; they could have quit when they were ahead.
Third Part - Characters
Characters - There are several types of characters in Las Vegas, pursuing conflicting objectives,
with contrary motivations, and seeing the other as their obstacle.
First, character is the postmortem consumer that is reuniting consumption with production,
which as Fuat and Dholakia (1998: 96) point out "were ripped apart in modernity,
(re)synthesizing the process to make all activity experiential and immersible instead of
separated and detached." The postmortem consumer is doing this in festival by seeking
alternative life styles to spectacles such as Las Vegas, and in carnivals of resistance by a
combination of environmental, religious, and labor groups seeking to reconstruct Las Vegas.
Postmodem resituates the gender issues. In modernity, the female lived in the private domain,
the home. The male was the producer who worked in the public domain, the factory or office
(Fuat & Dholakia, 1998: 17). The feminine (female) became the "ideal" consumer and the
masculine (male), the "ideal" producer in western culture. Private domain activities such as
cooking baking and weaving were feminized as home activities, unless they could be put into
the public domain of male work in the factory. When greater surplus value could be extracted
by employing female (or child) labor, then all factory label became feminized.
Second, character is also the organizations (casinos, hotels, strip clubs), people (show girls,
stars, card dealers), animals (Mirage acts), and objects (gaming tables and slot machines) that
are in the play and who carry out the dramatic action of Las Vegas. The character can be either
a protagonist or antagonist, and may be romantic or tragic.
A tragic Las Vegas character will pass from happiness to misery. Experiencing a great reversal
of fortune, a downfall is the result of misfortune, not his or her vice or baseness (not hamartia"tragic flaw"). The romantic will take a heroes journey, experience misery along the way, and
return from Las Vegas with a fortune. In postmortem Theatre, the character literally becomes a
character in the play (spect-actor). He or she directly participates in the construction of what
ideas and lifestyles are consumed by the audience.
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The moral purpose of each character is clear to the audience in classic Theatre; it is not so clear
in Las Vegas Theatres of capitalism. A character for Aristotle, even if they were evil, should
be morally good in some ways. Aristotle also thought their personalities should be believable
and act consistent with their character throughout the play (not step out of character as we see
in postmortem Theatre). Who are the characters in the Las Vegas festival, carnival and
spectacle? "Men are the certain kinds of individuals they are as a result of their character; but
they become happy or miserable as a result of their actions" (Aristotle, Poetics, pg. 13). Las
Vegas spectacle is spectacularly-extraordinary, the Strip casinos and their Paris, Venice, and
Rome simulacra are "larger than life" and "more real than real."
Character changes - One theatrical trend we see is how people are being invited to participate in
the spectacle of their own consumption. You can see this in Elvis Presley weddings at Las
Vegas, in Renaissance fairs where people dress in Victorian costume, and in the varied ways
people are experimenting in temporary life modes. Las Vegas is a place that caters to
temporary and more or less safe spectacles of consumption. Las Vegas is the new theatrics of
consumption. The Las Vegas "Theatre of consumption" (Firat & Dholakia, 1998) is strangely
related to the "global Theatre of signs" (Lyotard, 1997: 105), both are perfon-nances portending
a new order of things, both a paradox of standardized and fragmented global culture. The
simultaneous stage production varies between global transnational productions and locally
originated theatrics. In postmortem global Theatre, "people move in an out of relationships and
situations that they belong to, temporality and affectivity. In a similar vein people are members
of temporary or momentary communities" ... "the creation of multiple alternative communities
to the market society that will produce the alternative to the market: the society of the Theatre,
the Theatre of life" (Firat & Dholakia, 1998: 155).
The carnivalesque character would be more open than the spectacle one. Prostitution exists in a
more carnivalesque world than the on stage, show girl, work, in the casino hotels on the Strip.
The carnivalesque character's attitude to their body is a conflict between desire and general
social mores. On the Strip, sexuality is pure and moral on stage, but law prohibits prostitution.
In this sense there is more carnivalesque openness off strip. At the same time Las Vegas Strip
challenges Walt's Disneyland themes of mid western morality. The carnivalesque character has
a safer risk in the on Strip clubs than those off strip, where rules and laws about touching and
being touched are negotiable. On and off strip, lust does not go beyond the physical, and lasts
only for the duration of the carnival experience.
The festive character interacts fully with the natural world. Her character is more in tune
with the seasons
Fourth Part - Themes
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The themes of capitalism, Las Vegas style, is that casino hotels can control consumer tastes
through the sex and gambling spectacle. One central theme of Las Vegas is sin: drinking too
much, gambling too much, staying up all night, and taking in the sex (Sardy, 200 1). The
sucker's theme is that any bozo can hit the jackpot and experience rags-toriches success, fame,
and fortune. Spectacle thrives on rags-to-riches mythology. Lady fortune is the idol, and she
shines brightly in the spectacle of conspicuous consumption. Spectacle carries the
manipulative power of advertising to its extreme. With star power, the spectacle seduces us
into the life style of the rich and famous, the vicarious relationship to the celebrity on the stage.
Linstead (2001) argues Las Vegas is seduction, but also abandonment; we are seduced, then
abandoned once our cash is gone.
There is an overarching, main lesson, to be learned from Las Vegasization; the central idea or
message of the Las Vegas Theatres of capitalism is that corporations have the power to control
our desire; control over production is no longer as important as control over consumption.
Even Mother Nature can be reshaped into outdoor Theatres of capitalism; Yosemite National
Park is a theme park, nature shaped by the Forest Service, modemity's mastery over Nature.
Consumption becomes the yardstick of Forest Service success.
The theme of Las Vegas is that spectacle is a richer experience if it is bigger, more visually
grand, and more spectacular than the competition. But, the spectacle must also be tidier,
cleaner, and safer; the Luxor does not have all those beggars or the balmy climate of the
pyramids; you can see all the wonders of the world without walking nearly as far.
What lessons, ideas, and messages do we learn from going to Las Vegas? What is the thought
or the inner life of the characters and their struggles in Las Vegas? Thought is the power of
saying whatever can and should be said at each moment of the plot.
The theme of carnival is to resisted materialism, how it depletes the world's resources and
species, makes a few people wealthy, while over half the world lives on less than a dollar a day.
Shundahai Network, for example, is a Native American ecology group fighting a proposed
nuclear dumpsite north of Las Vegas. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
detonated its sixth sub critical nuclear weapons experiment at the Nevada Test Site located 85
northwest of Las Vegas. There was a carnival of protest by the Shundahai Network at the
Foley Federal Building, in Las Vegas with banners and drums. Another protest took place
outside the Bechtel Corporation, that manages the Nevada Test Site where the detonation took
place.'v Belk (2000) adds a bit of carnivalesque satire, "Should Las Vegas be praised for its
empowering liberation or should we lament that the nearby above ground nuclear tests that
were a part of the 1950s Las Vegas spectacle weren't detonated in the center of the Strip?"
Carnival is an expression of disillusionment with spectacle and disbelief in the rag-toriches,
trickle-down, and invisible hand themes of Las Vegas. Carnival is subversive to Las Vegas
culture. Yet, carnival like any rebellion can be co-opted, usurped, and commodified. The antimaterialist play "Blue Man Group" 1200 seat state-of-the-art Luxor Theatre. Their percussive
instruments are crafted from PVC piping and create a sound that is as indigenous as it is
otherworldly. It is also a "visually stunning" spectacle that offers no resistance whatsoever to
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conspicuous consumption. Once a year, there is a queer party in Las Vegas, but it seems to
Sardy (2001) to distract from the heterosexual illusion and the comfort of the majority of Las
Vegas spect-actors who are uncomfortable around gays and lesbians. Then there is the water
protests:
Las Vegas long ago outstripped its own natural-resource infrastructure. Steve Wynn's
hydro- fetishism (he once proposed turning downtown's
Fremont Street into a pseudo-Venetian Grand Canal) sets the standard for Las Vegans'prodigal
overconsumption of water: 360 gallons daily per capita versus 21 1 in Los Angeles, 160 in
Tucson, or I IO in Oakland (Mike Davis).v
Las Vegas has never practiced water conservation. While some postmodemists such as
Baudrillard point to the hyperreality of Las Vegas, more critical postmodemists, such as
myself, point to the ecological destruction that is not only Clark County, Nevada, but the part
of the spread of Las Vegasization.
The theme of festival is that a simpler existence, where we consume less, and share the wealth
more equitably is possible, here and there. Las Vegas would label this an irrational
consumption (Fiat & Dholakia, 1998: 59). There is another way to be festive in Las Vegas.
Sardy (2001) describes how the queer consumer (gays and lesbians) deals with the theme of
heterosexuality in Las Vegas; Vegas is where straight men go to see babes nude, or if they are
lucky, get laid. The theme of Las Vegas is compulsory heterosexuality (Sardy, 2001: 178).
Fifth Part- Dialog
Dialog - is the words or lines of the characters and how they speak. There is a style of speaking
that is more western and wild than mid-town America. It is what characters say to each other
in Las Vegas Theatres of capitalism that makes it different than Disney or McDonald's. Diction
is the actual composition of the lines said by actors, as well as how they are delivered. To the
extent that Las Vegas themes like Disney and Taylorizes work scripts like McDonald's that
difference disappears. When done well, the spectators can leave a Las Vegas, Disney, or
McDonald's performance and quote the lines exactly. What is the dialogue in Las Vegas?
What do we learn from listening to Las Vegas dialog? Do we recite the lines?
Sardy's (2001: 178, additions mine) study gives us insight into Las Vegas diction, for example,
"posing as a straight man [in Las Vegas] requites him to redirect energy into creating and
maintaining a fagade, to censor language and constantly monitor oneself ensuring that clues are
not given away."
Dialogue gives us infon-nation about Las Vegas, reveals differences in characters, draws
attention (foreshadows) what to expect, reveals the themes, and establishes the level of reality,
and the melody (tempos and rhythm) of Las Vegas.
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There is some strange dialog in Las Vegas.
For example International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) held its annual conference in
Circus, Circus with the theme to "inject meaning, spirituality into a digital world driven by
materialism and consumerism." Are they being ironic?
Sixth Part - Rhythm
Rhythm - is everything that is heard in Las Vegas Theatres of capitalism. Besides show music,
there can also be the sounds that you hear in the Casino (the slot machines and their dropping
coins) and when you take a walk the Strip (the outdoor exhibitions). In classical Theatre the
music had to blend in perfectly with the play; this is less true of Las Vegas melody. I hope
Aristotle will forgive me for expanding melody to include dance and movement. In dancing,
rhythm and movement is used to give a certain kind of hannony or discord to the play. The
melody includes the tempo and rhythm of the sounds, the coins dropping in the slot machines.
It includes the voices you hear from not only actors but spectators. What does a break in the
rhythm of a show indicate to the audience? That an actor ha missed a cue, or a dropped line.
Seventh Part - Frames
Frames are metanarratives of the Las Vegasization Theatre of capitalism. The metanarrative is
an overarching ideological system, and in capitalism it legitimates particular themes of
production and consumption. Resisting the metanarrative of the spectacle are the lesser
narratives of festival and carnival. There are Frames of acceptance (the tragedy of loss and the
comedy of good times make up for losses). And Frames of rejection (the grotesque and the
burlesque side of Las Vegas is covered over by the postmodern architecture in spectacular
displays like the Luxor, Paris, Paris, and the like. Frames of acceptance and rejection, for
Burke form a dialectic opposition.
Las Vegasization is a mode of theatrical imitation (mimesis), in which the spectacles, plots,
characters, themes, dialogs, rhythms, and frames deterritorialize and retenitorialize the global
marketplace.
Questions and Answers about Las Vegasization Trends
What is the Las Vegasization trend? It is a carefully planned and orchestrated visual
experience. It is showing, not telling with an amazing array of visual styles; it is visual
spectacle, not a story narrated with words; it is show, not tell. It is the bait and switch game,
played in every nook and cranny of capitalist Theatre. We are baited with the allure of the
American Dream of wealth and power that comes from a game of chance. We are then
switched into the addict role, scripted to be in a repetitive relationship with onearmed bandits.
In Las Vegasization, you show a story, and don't tell it. Las Vegasization is transforming each
worker and consumer into a character controlled and managed in the playwrights constructed
world. It leads us through a storyline with twists and turns, and safe complications, where we
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forge the ultimate inexorable final climax, separating use from our money (Oswick & Keenoy,
2001). Theatrics of postmortem capitalism is switching from Marx's focus on production to
Debord's spectacle of consumption. And consumption is about consuming an experience, not a
product or service. We now accumulate spectacles, and along with them lots of products and
services. The trend is to give consumers a proactive role in designing their experience, in
producing what they consume. The trend encompasses more than the McJobs of
McDonaldization and the theme park experience of Disneyfication; Las Vegasization is more
than Disneyfication plus McDonaldization. Las Vegasization is about addiction to spectacle
experiences. The trend is towards escaping the real, by creating temporary identities in which
we play a character beyond the rat of our daily existence. Sometimes it is playing a temporary
work-character, such as a weekend strip-tease artist, who is other times, a housewife from Van
Nuys. The trend in Las Vegas is away from the Bugsy Seagal image towards family
entertainment, and a place for retirees to go on tour buses. Still Las Vegas spectacle is the
antagonist, and we are ght good guy protagonists who want to play the game, win big, and
never lose.
Why is the Las Vegasization trend taking place? Capitalism, once it learned to
McDondaldize production, turned towards the control the consumption. The former is
repetitive Theatre; the later is more non-linear, inviting us to become cast members. It is taking
place because we are addicts to spectacle, addicted to experiencing and participating as spectactors in certain staged experiences owned, managed and controlled by corporate power. We
are willing to purchase spectacle experiences that take us out of our daily routine. It is
happening because it takes all the
How is the Las Vegasization trend happening? It is happening with a profound sense of
Theatre, as the spectacle authors seduce and enchant us with spectacle so that we are recruited
and captured as its performers. The Las Vegas spectacle playwright must pull the spectator's
full attention away from the world of reality, and seduce them into entering into the Theatre as
an actor. Eliminating time, by making consumption and work into a 24/7 reality, pulls the
attention away from the ultimate climax. What good is spectacle if it does not turn us into
addicts. In that sense, Spectacle Theatre happens by annihilating and assimilating festival
Theatre, no longer tied to seasons, to day or to night. The theatrical experience is being
managed and produced by business college graduates to learn the technical skills needed to turn
spectators into actors. We teach our students how to manipulate motivation and influence to
addict workers and consumers into the new theatrics of capitalism, taking roles in capitalist
Theatre. These are substance as well as process addictions.
Where is the Las Vegasization trend going? We are headed for a time when Las
Vegasization will colonize every space of capitalism, making all economy part of Theatre. It is
rapidly moving beyond the repetitive Theatre of McDonaldization to more varied and
participatory performances. It is moving beyond the Midwest family values of Disney, while
using that as a lure to get families to vacation in Vegas. Las Vegasization is what Touchstone
pictures is to Disney cartoons; it is a bit wilder in every way. It is migrating from Las Vegas to
every city in the world; not just Atlantic City or the Indian reservation casinos. It is theming all
cities, their airports and malls to be an addiction to the experiential, to acting a part in the
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drama of corporate capitalism. And it is migrating from real stage to virtual stages in cyber
space. We can purchase gambling and sex experiences on the web e-Theatres. We can also
resist the adrenalin rush of e-Theatre spectacles, with e-camival, or turn off the computer, video
games, and DVD and head outdoors to look for festive experiences. Of course, if we can get
accumulate spectacle in cyber-space, why head to Las Vegas? The trend is away from Las
Vegas as the center of spectacle accumulation, towards making Las Vegasization an experience
we find anywhere in the real or the cyber world.
What do I think of Las Vegasization? I resist over-consumption, yet I like the idea of taking
participatory control over my consumptive experience. To me, it is scary when I see how
easily my addictions can be activated, as I willingly take on some theatrical role in the
spectacle. Yet, if I resist the seduction of the addiction, I can gamble a bit with a new role and
not pay the ultimate price. I am tempted to gamble until I am in debt, to be sexually wild, and
to drink to intoxication; yet I don't. I am puzzled why I am
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